Padova Urbs Picta and Montecatini Terme declared Unesco heritage

by time news

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee, meeting online for its 44th session, has decided to register two new Italian sites in the World Heritage List. They are respectively “PADOVA Urbs Picta”, with the Scrovegni Chapel and the fourteenth century pictorial cycles, and Montecatini Terme, the latter included in the “Great SPAs of Europe” circuit, and part of a transnational candidacy promoted by Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, as well as Italy.

As a note from the Farnesina recalls, the number of Italian sites on the World Heritage List thus rises to 57, making Italy the country with the highest number of inscriptions on the World Heritage List. A result that once again testifies to the extraordinary richness of our country’s cultural and natural heritage.

Franceschini: “With Padua and Montecativi, the Italian Unesco sites become 57”

“With Padua Urbs Picta and Montecatini, among the great spa cities of Europe, the Italian sites registered in the World Heritage list become 57: together with the 14 registered in the representative list of the intangible heritage of humanity, they thus become 71 Unesco recognitions regarding the Italian cultural heritage. Padua then becomes, together with Tivoli, one of the few cities in the world to keep two of them: a primacy that strengthens the cultural leadership of Italy, reaffirms the vastness of the national cultural heritage and recognizes the role of communities in the protection and promotion of their assets “. Thus the Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, comments on the inscription of the two sites in the world heritage list which took place today by decision of the World Heritage Committee during the 44th session in progress in Fuzhou (China) and thanks the undersecretary Lucia Borgonzoni who followed the process of these nominations.

The ‘serial site’ Urbs Picta, explains a press release, includes all the precious large frescoes of the fourteenth century preserved in eight buildings and monumental complexes of the city: the Scrovegni Chapel, the Church of Santi Filippo e Giacomo ai Eremitani, the Palazzo della Ragione, the Chapel of the Carrarese Palace, the Baptistery of the Cathedral, the Basilica and the Convent of Sant’Antonio, the Oratory of San Giorgio and the Oratory of San Michele. During the 14th century, some of the most extraordinary artists of the time frescoed the walls of these places: Giotto, who created his absolute masterpiece with the frescoes of the Scrovegni Chapel, Guariento di Arpo, Giusto de ‘Menabuoi, Altichiero by Zevio, Jacopo Avanzi and Jacopo da Verona.

The candidacy was promoted by the Municipality of Padua together with the other three entities that own the buildings and monumental complexes that preserve the frescoed cycles: Galilean Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts; Basilica and Convent of Sant’Antonio; Papal Delegation and Veneranda Arca del Santo and Diocese of Padua. Together with the Veneto Region, the candidacy was coordinated for Italy by the Ministry of Culture with the Permanent Representation of Italy in Paris and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and made use of the scientific advice of the Superintendence of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the metropolitan area of ​​Venice and the provinces of Belluno, Padua and Treviso, as well as the University of Padua.

You may also like

Leave a Comment